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The hard nutty one at the bottom of the chocolate box

Johnny Depp is such a consistently surprising actor that when he jumped out of a chocolate box as Willy Wonka in Tim Burton’s latest film he seemed to add another layer to the mystique that envelops him. Yet the Hollywood star can be read like an open book if you know where to look.

A proliferation of body tattoos chart his journey through life, proclaiming his rites of passage like labels on a well-worn suitcase. There are insignia for Betty Sue, his beloved mother, his children Lily Rose and Jack, an Indian chief and many others including the actress Winona Ryder, whose accolade “Winona Forever” was surgically shortened to “Wino Forever” when their engagement came to a messy end.

For the 42-year-old heartthrob’s legion of fans, at a subliminal level there are beguiling parallels between Depp and Wonka — a much darker character than Gene Wilder’s depiction in the 1971 version